Knitting on a deadline

Went to Ottawa for Kim's baby shower, and still wasn't done the second sweater that I wanted to give her. I'm usually pretty good at knitting for a deadline, but with the whole house thing, I've been a little preoccupied. I was close enough though that I thought I could finish on the drive up. This is as far as I got.


I think I would've finished had I not forgotten my dpns at home. And so, I presented the almost finished sweater to her, and then took it back with me so I could finish the ties before giving it back to her. So close, yet so far. Oh well. It's still a pretty sweet little sweater, and since I made the 12mo size, I'll see her again before the baby fits into it. I highly recommend Helena as a pattern, and Swish superwash as a yarn - this was a really enjoyable knit.

It's supposed to be spring

Even though spring has officially arrived, the weather here hasn't exactly reflected that. I'm getting good use out of my reliable Clapotis and my new Fiddleheads. But something was still missing. A nice hat. Much to my dismay, I seem to have lost the Koolhaas hat that I made - it probably got tucked away in our massive clean up of the place when we were trying to sell it. So, what to do?


Say hello to the Tempest Beret, from the Winter/Spring Knit Scene. It was a really fun knit. I made it from the Malabrigo that Adrienne sent to me way back. I was originally hesitant to knit a beret because I was afraid that my ears would be cold, but this hat covers my ears nicely. It also takes the award for most fun blocking. You put it around a big plate! How fun is that?! Uh...okay...maybe I'm the only one who finds it fun (haha!).


Also got a package from Knit Picks today containing yarn that will be fashioned into more baby items. I'll post about those when I've actually started them. I just got some superwash merino since I figure new moms and dads don't have the time to hand wash.

I still dislike finishing and sewing in ends

Another finished object! Yay!

It's the Baby Yours that I started a while ago, and now that I know someone who's having a girl, I decided to hurry up and finish it. This involved more sewing together than I usually like. I'm not too sure if I'd knit it again without trying to figure out how to take away some of the seaming.

Here's a photo that shows the cables better, but the colour is totally off. I'm a bit too lazy to adjust the levels in Photoshop. Just imagine this in the colours of the first photo. Haha!


I still need to block this, but on the whole I guess it's okay. I made some boo-boo's on it, but I think I managed to hide them. Haha!!

I win!

Remember how Jamie said that I wouldn't get the mittens done before winter was over? Well, he added a few more stipulations to that statement. He said that in order for me to prove him wrong, I had to either finish the Fiddleheads before March 21, or before the last day of sub-zero temperatures, which ever came first.

Annoyed with his increasing number of stipulations, I decided to silence all doubt by finishing the mitts.


The alpaca lining is lovely, and the next time I see Denny at Lettuce Knit I will have to thank her for her suggestion. It really is like a little bit of luxury next to my skin. I wore them today to work, and my hands were the warmest they'd been in a while.

Now I just need to figure out how to shove the bottoms of the mittens into my coat sleeves while wearing said mittens. If I could do that, I'd be all set. Either that, or learn to do up zippers while wearing mitts.

Halfway there

Just a little update on the progress of my Fiddleheads.


The cat seems to give it his seal of approval.

As I mentioned before, I decided to knit the second using magic loop instead of dpns. I hadn't really anticipated that the simple act of eliminating the need to change between needles would significantly speed up my knitting. But it did. And so...


I took that picture before blocking. They are currently drying after a good soak, and I think most of the funny bumps and curls are pretty much gone. Now, on to the lining!

I am determined to prove Jamie wrong, and finish them before the weather gets warm.

Fledgling Fiddleheads

I've been working on my new Fiddlehead Mittens in the hopes of finishing them before the winter is over. It's been going faster than I thought. However, I'm getting the feeling that I'm not really very good at picking colours. Here's why.


While I love the look of the dark purple against the grey-ish brown, I'm not so sure about that lavender. Granted, the photo makes it look lighter than it reality. Looking at it sitting next to my laptop, I am able to see the swirly motif quite nicely, so I guess it's not too bad.

I was considering frogging the lavender part and just stick with just the dark purple and grey-brown, but as I write this post and keep looking at the mitten itself, I think I'm going to keep plugging away at it. For the second mitten, I'm considering using magic loop; not totally sure yet though.

FOs!

Yay! I've finished something! After a long, long time, I finally finished my toe socks! And this marks the last set of socks I will make on size 0 needles. Adrienne, I'm sending those needles your way. You're okay with bamboo, right?


With the finishing of something, it heralds the desire to start something new. Even though I'm not really suppose to be enhancing my stash right now, I really wanted to start on some new mittens. My current mittens are getting kinda old, and the thrums inside are thinning out and getting matted down, and hence not very warm any more. And so...

Starting from the left are three skeins of Cascade 220, which are slated to become Fiddlehead Mittens. The two skeins of alpaca are going to be the lining for the Fiddleheads. The last two skeins are just some pretty, pretty Koigu that I just wanted - they'll probably become socks. I also got the latest issue of Knitscene.

Why did I feel that it was suddenly okay to buy more yarn? Jamie confessed to me that he bought two books even though we no longer have any bookshelves :)